Professor Ulrike M. Malmendier

Ulrike Malmendier received her PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University in 2002, and her PhD in Law (summa cum laude) from the University of Bonn in 2000. She joined Berkeley in 2006 as an Assistant Professor, after having been at Stanford as Assistant Professor of Finance since 2002. She also is a research associate at NBER (Corporate Finance and Labor Economics) and a faculty research fellow at IZA, a CESifo affiliate, and a CEPR research affiliate. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Max-Planck Institute in Bonn, Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago.Recently, she was named Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2010-2012), and she received several Citations of Excellence by Emerald for her research (2009, 2006). She was named Distinguished Speaker at the European Financial Management meeting in Milan, Italy, Keynote Speaker at the ERIM Invitational Conference "Frontiers in Research in Management" in Rotterdam (NL), and Distinguished Speaker at the Mergers and Acquisitions conference in Exeter (UK). She was a selected speaker at the Review of Economic Studies European Tour 2002. She has received fellowships and grants from numerous institutions in the U.S. and Europe.She currently serves as associate editor for the Journal of Financial Intermediation, the Economic Journal, and the Journal of the European Economic Association as well as the guest associate editor for the Special Issue on Behavioral Economics and Finance of Management Science. She has been on the program committee and organized numerous sessions at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association, American Finance Association, and Western Finance Association. She also was one of the founders and is a continuing organizer of the Behavioral Economics Annual Meeting (BEAM) as well as an organizer of the Psychology and Economics segment of the Stanford Institute in Theoretical Economics (SITE).



Malmendier has received numerous honors and prizes, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, several Emerald Citations of Excellence by Emerald, Distinguish or Keynote Speaker engagements. She was also a selected speaker at the Review of Economic Studies European Tour.



In 2013, Malmendier was awarded the prestigious Fisher Black Prize from the American Finance Association, given biennially to the top financial scholar under the age of 40. The award citation referred to Malmendier’s work in corporate finance, behavioral economics and finance, contract theory, and the history of the firm, particularly noting the originality and creativity of her research. Malmendier’s area of focus is the intersection of economics and finance, and why and how individuals make decisions—specifically how individuals make mistakes and systematically biased decisions. Some of her work includes research on CEO overconfidence, the long-term frugality of Depression “babies” and the decision-making behind gym membership.